What should have been a celebratory July for Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones was briefly marred by a bunch of racist idiots on Twitter, who harassed her with a disturbing velocity that ultimately ended with Twitter stepping in to hit at least one troll with a permanent ban. Jones stopped by Seth Meyers' Late Night show on Thursday for her first interview since the incidents and revealed that she never "quit" Twitter as some headlines have suggested. She also broke down the difference between freedom of speech and straight-up hate speech for Meyers.
"First of all, let me let everybody know that I did not leave Twitter, okay?" Jones said. "I didn't leave! I just signed out because I wanted to deal with what was going on." Adding that the calculated trolling attacks made against her were "gross, mean, and unnecessary," Jones talked about the scariest part about being targeted.
"What's scary about the whole thing is that the insults didn't hurt me," Jones said. "Unfortunately I'm used to the insults. That's unfortunate. What scared me was the injustice of a gang of people jumping against you for such a sick cause." Thankfully, Jones was eventually linked up with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, a move she hopes will open up a new dialogue surrounding rampant Twitter abuse.
Jones then delivered an excellent explanation about Twitter's desperate need for new security measures:
"It's like, that’s my favorite restaurant! I love the food there! [But] 3 people just got shot in front of me. Y'all need to get some security!"
Fortunately, all the idotic hate in the world isn't enough to stop the new Ghostbusters crew. Rory Bruer, an important Sony person, hit the Wrap with the good news just last week. "While nothing has been officially announced yet, there's no doubt in my mind [a sequel] will happen,"Â Bruer said. "I expect Ghostbusters to become an important brand and franchise."
